Cocaine Princess
by Vullardqueen
Summary: "Now, on Squid Twitter a man named Luke Crowley alongside his two friends, Connor Rothwell and Jeremy Steele have brought allegations...or maybe not allegations, but rumors up against you that you have had a past in drug abuse. People have gone as far as to nickname you 'Cocaine Princess', do you have anything to say about that?"


"Now, on Squid Twitter a man named Luke Crowley alongside his two friends, Connor Rothwell and Jeremy Steele have brought allegations...or maybe not allegations, but rumors up against you that you have had a past in drug abuse. People have gone as far as to nickname you 'Cocaine Princess', do you have anything to say about that?"

Pearl looked up at the interviewer, then around the fake office set around her. She shifted in her seat slightly, and begun to swing her legs underneath the chair in an antsy fashion. Her manager stood behind the cameramen, giving her a look of concern to remind her that she could decline to comment if she wanted to. She however just looked at the interviewer and said, "Sure, why not?"

He looked genuinely surprised. "Oh, alright. Well first of all, how do you know these three men?"

"They were old friends of mine. Yeah, it's true I was into that lifestyle when I was 17 or 18. They got me into it, if I'm gonna be honest." Pearl admitted, fidgeting slightly with the hem of her shirt. She felt like she'd been sitting in that fake room forever.

"You're only 21 now aren't you? How long ago did you quit?" The interviewer asked as he leaned forwards slightly.

"2 years clean, my dude." Pearl said as she got a wide grin on her face. "Pretty damn proud of that."

"As you should be!" The interviewer said quickly with a smile. "That's hard, isn't it? To get off drugs?"

Pearl nodded. "Yeah. To this day I've never felt worse in my life than when I was trying to get off drugs."

"I can imagine. So...if you don't mind delving a bit deeper into this subject what kinds of drugs were you on? How did you come to quit?" The interviewer asked.

"I really don't mind talking about it. I kinda think we live life and because we live life we have stories to share, y'know? What's the point in having stories if you can't share 'em! Especially if your stories are going to help someone else. I wasn't the first person doing drugs and I'm DEFINITELY not going to be the last person to ever do drugs either. It's tough shit. So yo, if my story can help people...then I'll go for it." Pearl said before she sat back in her chair. "So...I was kind of into...everything. You name it, I tried it or I was hooked on it."

"You say everything. Does this include Cocaine, like your new nickname denotes?"

"Yep."

"LSD?"

"Tried it. Didn't like it."

"Weed?"

"Of course."

The interviewer paused and tilted his head. "...meth?"

"Yeeeeaahhh, that was the worst one." Pearl sighed. "That was the big one."

"So I guess your nickname would be better off as 'Meth Princess' instead of 'Cocaine Princess'." The interviewer joked, getting a small smile.

He was relieved to see Pearl smile back. "I mean, if you want accuracy yeah. But let's be real, Cocaine Princess is just infinitely more catchy and cool than Meth Princess. Catchy names is where it's at!"

"Right, right. So, you were doing tons of bad stuff. How did you come to get OFF of those things? What drove you to stop? Who helped you?" The interviewer asked.

"That's actually where my girlfriend Marina comes in." Pearl explained, sitting up a bit straighter as she glanced around the room. "So uh...she moved in with me pretty soon after we met." She began, trying to word things….carefully so she didn't give anything away that Marina didn't want out there. "At the time, I was pretty bad off. I didn't really think about hiding it from her, I was so in the habit of sitting down at night to do...whatever I was doing that night. I sat down one night and started doing the routine and Marina kinda looked at me funny. I asked what she was looking at, and she asked me "What's that?" I kind of looked back at her, and then shrugged and told her it was Meth, and she said some...fancy science word I can't pronounce that's like...the science name for Meth and she started to explain that she had….heard of the Octarian armies using something similar so that their soldiers could go longer without rest, and have more energy and do longer missions and it was an issue. Then she paused, and she got this horrified look on her face and said "Pearl why do you have that?!""

"After that I kind of just...blanked. Kind of like...when someone asks you something and there's an obvious answer there but it sounds so...stupid and you don't wanna say it? Yeah, that. I just replied and said "Because it makes me feel good." Because that's….exactly what it amounted to. After that she got increasingly worried because she noticed I was doing it….a lot, and I started questioning WHY I was doing these drugs and what it did for me. I didn't find anything positive about it and it really messed with Marina, so...that's a few reasons I stopped."

The interviewer nodded along as she talked. "...so...was there anything in particular that triggered you to just...stop cold?"

"Nah. I think I woke up one morning after a really uuuuuhhhhh….long night and just...thought 'I really don't want to do this anymore'. So I got up and went to Marina and told her I didn't want to do this anymore and she said she'd helped me and that's how that started."

"Right, and you said it was pretty awful?"

"Oh god, yeah. Like within a few days, I started feeling bad. I like...didn't sleep for days and then slept for days. Went from not eating to eating EVERYTHING. The entire time I was just...craving and I felt anxious and I had these awful psychotic symptoms. It took a month for me to get back to any resemblance of normal. Like I said, I've never felt worse in my life."

The interviewer nodded, shifting in his seat and glancing a little at the time. "So, you're happy you're off of it?"

"Oh yeah absolutely. I don't think I could do the job I'm doing now if I was still on drugs. I don't think I could have all those kids looking up to me while I'm ruining my life. Some people I know personally are struggling with addiction right now too." She paused to glance past the camera men at her manager standing with them. He just gave her a small smile. "I think that this little...episode of my life has helped me help them. And yo, maybe someone watching this needs to hear it too."

"Alright, we're running a little short on time here...but I do have one more question for you."

"Shoot."

"Did these three men coming forwards make you feel like you had to share this? To defend yourself or clear things up?" He asked, watching her curiously.

Pearl actually snorted. "God, no. No one can make me talk about anything I don't feel like I wanna talk about. I got a right to privacy. I shared this because I feel like there's probably people who need to hear it. I'm more than happy to talk about it."

The interviewer kind of laughed. "...good to know that you're open about it. Well, thanks for the interview today Pearl." He said, reaching out a hand for her to shake.

"No problem, thanks for having me." She replied, shaking his hand before the director called cut and the interview as over. Pearl just sat back in the chair, closing her eyes for a moment and taking a deep breath.

She was glad that was over.


End file.
